Nervous system injuries affect numerous people every year. As a result of this high incidence of neurological injuries, nerve regeneration and repair is becoming a rapidly growing field dedicated to the discovery of new ways to recover nerve functionality after injury. However up to now, clinically repairing central nervous system (CNS) lesions and recovering neurological functions for patients suffering from nervous system injuries have been problematic. Thus, patients with various forms of nervous system diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and senile dementia, have always been told by their physicians that it would be difficult to recover their neurological functions.
The ability of neurons to extend neurites (such as axons and dendrites) is of prime importance in establishing neuronal connections during development. It is also required during neuroregeneration to re-establish connections destroyed as a result of a lesion. However, axons in the central nervous system have a very limited capacity to re-grow after a lesion. Thus, for diseases such as senile dementia, in which there is a progressive degeneration of neuronal cells, the research of therapeutic agents or molecules which are able to stimulate neuronal cell outgrowth and proliferation, will open a new therapeutic strategy which focuses on neural repair and restoring neurological function.
There is a need to improve methods of treating nervous system injuries and neurological diseases. More specifically, there is a need to provide regenerative therapies which can promote neuronal outgrowth and proliferation of neurons so as to enable damaged or diseases nerves to function again.